1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device and tape carrier, and a method of manufacturing the same, to a circuit board, an electronic instrument, and a tape carrier manufacturing device.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, with the increasingly compact nature of electronic instruments, there has been a large demand for compact semiconductor devices in which CSP (Chip Scale/Size Package) technology is applied. For the manufacture of such compact semiconductor devices, TAB (Tape Automated Bonding) technology can be applied. Since TAB technology can be carried out using a tape carrier in a reel-to-reel process, it is appropriate to quantity production of semiconductor devices.
However, TAB technology was not developed with semiconductor devices as compact as those of today in mind, and there is therefore further room for improvement.
For example, a semiconductor device fabricated with the application of conventional TAB technology has outer leads as external electrodes, whereas in CSP, solder balls are used as external electrodes. A method which exploits the features of TAB technology, while efficiently providing solder balls has not yet been developed.
If there should be a fault in a part of the tape carrier, which requires a very fine interconnect pattern, it is necessary to remove the bad portion and join the remainder together. On a tape carrier with a dense interconnect pattern, the cutting must be carried out on the interconnect pattern, and at the join, adhesive tape or the like is provided for the joining. Therefore, the mounting of a semiconductor chip or the formation of solder balls cannot be carried out at the join, but a reel-to-reel process is carried out continuously, and as a result it has not been possible to avoid just this area.